Well, Tim, as you know, I'm most at home with the little meters as well, so I'll jump in. Neat idea, this.
Your own short lines are bound up tight and stocky as all get out, often seeming to wind up for the knockout punch at the close, whereas I use the same meters to try and achieve a very different effect: an airy sort of atmosphere and lots of trailing off room. And sometimes pithy or wiseacre humor just begs for the short line. There is indeed great freedom in di and tri and lots of neat ways to regulate pace, which I hope you'll talk a little about. You mention rhyme, which is something else I hope you'll talk about. In your Pallbearers I notice you've an even mix of nouns/verbs in the rhyme positions. Well, it's a good idea to get a healthy mix in any meter, but in di/tri it seems especially so, otherwise, what you get is the unmistakable sound of straining. Or clinking, which is even worse. Humor is an exception, I'm sure. My own dimeter and trimeter pieces rarely follow a strict rhyme scheme, and are generally peppered with slants. Over on the DE, irregular rhyme (not to mentions mixing slants with true) in IP or tet is practically verboten, but I don't recall ever being flagged for committing these same crimes in my short lines. I often wonder if it's the ear that's forgiving in those poems, or my readership !
It's also my experience that long poems in di or tri are practically impossible to pull off, and not just because they're too...well, leggy on the page. I've one, but I've never been satisfied with it. Have you successful examples of any ?
I'd be interested in hearing your experiences with reciting these short-lined poems for an audience. Do you pause at the end of your lines, or is it context/enjambment dependent ? I occasionally do readings, and find myself reciting more slowly/expressively when I do my itty bitty poems. I'm not sure if that's a virtue of the short line or just a sign of my comfort within them. I know it's said that IP allows the most 'natural' breaks for breaths/pauses in the language, but I'm at all sure I believe it. Of course I'm a slow talker, and tend to be spare in my conversation.
Well, most of the time.
Can't help post the obvious RF below. I'll stop in again and put up JVC's Contemporaries it if hasn't appeared already. For Open Mic, too.
ps to Janet: sweet finish on Vicarious !
and Robt: you mean you haven't a Robt Ward Waltz?
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Nothing Gold Can Stay
Nature's first green is gold,
her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
[This message has been edited by wendy v (edited May 23, 2004).]
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